New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo will crack down on distracted driving, the Democrat said in a Thursday news release. Under “Operation Hang Up,” Thursday through Monday, the state will increase patrols and checkpoints targeting drivers on electronic devices, Cuomo’s office said in a news release. Troopers will ride marked state police vehicles and concealed traffic enforcement vehicles, it said. New York issued more than 92,000 tickets for texting while driving in 2016 -- a 918 percent increase from 2011 -- based on preliminary 2016 statistics. Tickets for cellphone calls dropped by more than half to 113,116, and tickets for texting and calling combined dropped 20 percent to 205,213 in 2016, the governor’s office said. “Distracted driving is dangerous and illegal” and “making calls or texting behind the wheel will not be tolerated,” Cuomo said. “State Police and local law enforcement will be out in force to ensure our roadways are safe, and I urge all drivers to act responsibly and put their devices down to prevent tragedy and heartbreak.”

With nearly half of U.S. homes wireless only, and the number growing, Americans put a premium on availability of robust wireless service as they shop for a new home, CTIA said Wednesday. “Even we were surprised at how high Americans now place reliable wireless coverage on the list of must-haves when moving to a new community,” said a news release. “Americans rank reliable wireless service (67 percent) higher than good schools (65 percent), reasonable home prices (60 percent), and good commuting times" (41 percent), according to a Morning Consult survey: "In fact, only quality health care and hospitals outranks it.” The message is clear, CTIA said: “Realtors check your coverage maps, and, more importantly, mayors and county executives make sure your community is wireless investment ready.” It's based on a survey of 2,000 registered voters with a margin of error of 2 percent.

Wilson Electronics asked the FCC to skip a further rulemaking and move directly to rules on eliminating the personal-use restriction on consumer cell-signal boosters, replacing it with a multi-provider registration requirement for wideband consumer signal boosters. Replies were due Monday on Wilson’s December petition for a rulemaking (see 1612200061). In initial comments, the change got broad support (see 1703240041). “Any need for the issuance of a FNPRM evaporated when the Wireless Telecommunications Bureau issued a public notice that went beyond soliciting comments on Wilson’s petition,” Wilson replied in docket 10-4. The bureau “asked for comments on specific questions addressed to whether the public interest would be served if the personal-use restriction on wideband boosters was eliminated,” the firm said. “The public notice garnered comments from a wide range of stakeholders that support the proposed rule change. Now that adequate notice and a meaningful opportunity to comment have been provided, the issuance of a FNPRM and the initiation of another round of comments are unnecessary.” The record “overwhelmingly supports the elimination of the personal-use restriction for wideband boosters, as well as for provider-specific boosters,” the company said. The Utilities Technology Council was among commenters supporting Wilson in replies. “Large or small, utilities rely on communications to support the safe, reliable and secure delivery of essential electric, gas and water services to the public at large,” UTC said. “Utilities have an interest in using signal boosters to improve the reception of communications, particularly in buildings and offices where the signal is weak and/or blocked by reflective materials used in the construction of the buildings.” The Telecommunications Subcommittee of the American Petroleum Institute supported the change. “The oil and natural gas industry have holdings and facilities in many remote areas where cellular telecommunication services are fair to poor,” the group replied. “These areas will benefit from a use clarifications on the use of personal boosters, as they will clearly allow their managed installations to proceed forward. While there is certainly this need, there are also several companies that have FCC license holdings, sub-leases, or other operating agreements on frequency bands which may be amplified by broadband boosters.”

ZTE began selling the Prestige 2 smartphone through Best Buy Monday for $79.99 on the Boost Mobile and Virgin Mobile networks, it announced. Features include a 5-inch display, 5-megapixel front and rear cameras and expandable storage, it said.

An Apple iPhone update this week patched a vulnerability that could cause the devices to repeatedly dial 911, overwhelming emergency-number operators, a spokesman confirmed. A spike in abandoned calls earlier this month overwhelmed 911 operators in Dallas. The city has been investigating (see 1703170040).

The FCC Wireline and Wireless bureaus Wednesday proposed to release minimum advertised or expected 4G LTE speed data from the Form 477 filings that carriers must make. Release would help Mobility Fund II analysis, the bureaus said in a public notice. “Disclosure of the minimum advertised or expected speeds associated with service providers’ 4G LTE coverage submitted in their Form 477 filings will enable a transparent process for challenges, and final determinations of areas eligible for Mobility Fund II support,” the PN said. “Strong public interest benefits support disclosing the minimum advertised or expected 4G LTE speeds.” The bureaus tentatively found “the public interest in providing such speed information would substantially outweigh any potential competitive harms to the providers in maintaining its confidentiality.” Staff said it would start with disclosure of data from Dec. 31, 2015, and June 30, 2016, Form 477 filings. Carriers have until April 12 to make a case for why individualized data shouldn't be released. “Affected parties must oppose disclosure of their aforementioned Form 477 4G LTE speed data and provide a full justification in support of their request for confidentiality,” the notice said.

Ericsson and SoftBank said they're moving to a next phase of 5G testing, using 28 GHz spectrum. Japan’s SoftBank is the parent of Sprint. The companies noted in a Friday news release that 4.5 GHz, the subject of past testing, and 28 GHz are candidate bands for 5G in Japan. “The coming 5G trial will be conducted both in indoor and outdoor trial environments covering both device mobility and stationary tests,” the companies said. “The trial will utilize Ericsson's mmWave 28GHz 5G Test Bed solution, which includes base stations and device prototypes and will showcase advanced 5G technologies including Massive-MIMO, Massive Beamforming, Distributed MIMO, Multi-user MIMO and Beam Tracking together with multi-gigabit data rates and ultra-low latency which are becoming key requirements for future consumer mobile broadband and industrial use-cases.”

Blast Motion was named official sensor technology of the Amateur Athletic Union, said the company in a Wednesday announcement. Blast’s baseball swing metrics give coaches data to help with player assessment and development via the Blast Motion mobile app and a smartphone to capture video. The app analyzes, combines and syncs swing metrics with the video to deliver real-time analysis, said the company. The app automatically detects a player’s swing and clips the video to create a series of video highlights, it said. Major League Baseball last year named Blast Motion’s Baseball 360 its official bat sensor technology, a company spokesman emailed us.

A smartphone’s camera is one of its most prized features, said a Strategy Analytics report Wednesday. As consumers continue to replace dedicated digital cameras with smartphone cameras for their convenience, image quality and clarity are becoming priorities for users, it said. Smartphone users are looking for integrated cameras to include features that aid photo capture, a selection of filters, easily accessible editing functionality and a wide-angle lens for selfies, it said.

AT&T and Verizon are seeing pressure on earnings and average revenue per user as competition intensifies, UBS wrote investors Wednesday. The firm raised its target price for T-Mobile from $63 to $80 per share, saying it's the best positioned of the major wireless carriers as the TV incentive auction reaches its end stage. “After a highly competitive end to 2016, 1Q shows no signs of relief as T-Mobile launched new all-in pricing, Sprint introduced its most aggressive unlimited family plan to date, and Verizon brought back unlimited data, causing AT&T to drop the DTV bundling requirement,” UBS said: “These moves are expected to impact flow share while weighing on service revenue and margin trends for the group. While the move to unlimited could eventually be neutral to ARPU [average revenue per user], it will initially provide a headwind due to lower overage and the optimization of plans. This, combined with greater promotional activity, will likely weigh on margins as well.”